Nine Ways Misses One Big Google Phone Point

December 14, 2009

I love Fortune Magazine. Dapper journalists opine about the mysteries of business as their own business model crumbles beneath them. Anyway, I do look at the occasional Fortune write up just to see what the real wizards of modern US business are thinking. I want to make sure I don’t think that way so my instrumental use of the Fortune ideas is bit different.

The article “Nine Ways of Looking at a Google Phone” did not disappoint me. The core idea is that there are nine ways of looking at the Google phone. (Sorry, Ms. Sperling). I could not resist this self referential comment. You will have to read the article to get the nine reasons. I can mention a couple of them.

For example, Google has “been watching with dismay” as folks have fiddled with Android. Yep, that’s a surprise that people fiddle with stuff that is available as open source. And, Google could – gasp – subsidize or give away the phone. Yep, another earth shaker.

Read through the other seven.

Now here’s what’s missing. The Google phone makes clear exactly how Google handles partners and former partners. The big point is that the Google phone will make some Google partners wonder if Google will repeat its Google phone trick. The Google Apple “relationship” is a wonderful aporia.

Stephen E. Arnold, December 14, 2009

I wish to report to the Employment Standards Administration that I was not paid to write this article. I think that if Google gets frisky there will be quite a bit of unemployment resulting from its disruption of certain business sectors. Could telecommunications be one such sector?

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining
and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky.
He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues
worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go
"beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site
with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.